Grace At Home Devotionals

It was supposed to be a really great April …

None of us planned to be under Stay At Home order when we were creating calendars and schedules earlier but here we are finishing our third week and looking ahead towards another month that is predicting more bad news until a peak is reached. Life is dramatically interrupted, plans are cancelled, and though nothing can stop Easter, safe to say, it’s going to be very different. How do we respond, how do pray, and what Scriptures can encourage us? It’s our hope these words bring an opportunity to lament, pray, and bring a some peace and perspective.

These devotions are aimed to be as real and authentic to our pastoral hearts as possible and I want to invite you to what I’ve been feeling as I’ve entered the month of April.

This was supposed to be a really great month. April, start of spring, kids sports starting up. My sons and I love baseball, they play Little League - we even have a little tradition of skipping school and going to New York City for the Yankees Home Opener - it’s part of our oldest birthday celebration. Little things that make you say, “eh we don’t get to do that now.”

I was going to travel this month for a Christian leader conference I’ve been going to since 2008 and a few things like that.

Then even more significant things like I get excited about Easter. Obviously a real busy and taxing time serving in the church but it’s kinda our Super Bowl - we get two - Easter and Christmas. Now Easter is not cancelled, and I’m fully confident that it will still be a beautiful and soul-filling day but there is a part of me that looks out to it and says, “I still wanted to worship together, and sing and celebrate the Resurrection story, I still wanted to be in community, I still wanted to have dinner with loved ones.

But outside of Easter, it was a special month because my younger brother was getting married on April 19th. Finally … He’s in his mid-30’s, he’s the youngest of our grandparents’ grandchildren, the last to get married, every family gathering has uncles and aunts and cousins saying, “I can’t wait ti you get married - won’t miss it for the world … “ and now this.

He’s my brother so it’s in our biology where I have to give him a hard time - “This kid can’t do anything right …” and simultaneously be fiercely protective, “My brother’s wedding can’t be disrupted like this.”

April was supposed to be amazing …

Then of course, the numbers we see every day.

The divisive rhetoric - our growing polarization … it seems for now that not even this global pandemic can bring us unity.

And so, all have that and more has been part of my prayer life. I say it all to God. I pray, I confess, lament a bit, I process and meditate, and in slow-motion the Lord meets me in these honest moments.

And lately, i’ve been mediating on an old familiar passage. One that I thought a lot during challenging years and it’s

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all of you heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all of your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.

Trust in the Lord … with all of your heart - I like that the Psalmist doesn’t oversimplify it, and just say Trust in the Lord completely, or Trust in the Lord or else … but uses heart language - because that’s how trust actually works, with your heart, with agency, with volition, … with your soul and don’t hold back.

Don’t lean on your own understanding. Your way of seeing everything, your plans for April, as good as they were, there’s more … don’t limit yourself.

In all of your ways, acknowledge him,

Whatever you are going to do next, surrender to him

And the Lord will make your path straight.

He will give you direction, vision, fuel for the journey and the trajectory you are on.

That ministers to me.

It doesn’t solve it necessarily, but I can feel confident that God and His goodness are with me, are with us, are with my brother and his fiancé, my family and yours and our community and our world.